Clearing your inbox faster
A slow inbox is rarely a volume problem; it is a deciding problem. The same message gets opened, half-read and left three times before anything happens to it. Triage fixes that by making one decision per message and moving on.
Decide once per message
The cost is not reading an email — it is re-reading it. Every message you open and leave "for later" is one you will read again from the top before you act. Handle each one the first time you open it, even if handling it is deciding it can wait.
The goal of a pass is not an empty inbox for its own sake; it is that nothing in it is still undecided.
Choose from a small set of actions
Speed comes from having few options, not from thinking harder. For most messages the choice is small: deal with it now if it takes under a couple of minutes, reply, hand it to whoever owns it, or file and archive it. Anything needing real work becomes a task somewhere else — the inbox is not the to-do list.
A fixed, short set of actions turns each message from an open question into a quick sort, which is what lets you keep pace as they arrive.
Batch, don’t graze
Reacting to mail as it lands interrupts whatever you were doing and taxes both tasks. A few deliberate passes a day clear the same volume in less time and leave long stretches uninterrupted. The inbox is a queue to work down, not a feed to watch.
Practise the reflex
Triage is a reflex, and a reflex is built by repetition under a little time pressure. Inbox Zero deals messages one at a time and asks for a single decision on each before the next arrives — the same move as a real pass, fast enough to build the habit.